Family Friendly Accommodation: Airbnb With Kids

Travel with kids can be expensive, especially if you choose prime family holiday destinations in large cities. That’s where Airbnb has found their niche. The website provides access to small and more unique accommodation options that can allow you to stay in places that have full facilities (just like a house) but without costing a fortune – because you stay in other people’s homes. No, this is not just a service for backpackers. Airbnb actually has family friendly accommodation and can be a clever and cost effective way to travel with kids too. Two suitcases&strollers mums tell us their experiences using Airbnb with kids.

How It Works

Airbnb specialises in allowing
homeowners to advertise their spaces on the website to prospective travellers.
If the idea of a holiday with kids cooped up in a hotel doesn’t appeal, this is
a good alternative. In 192 countries and over 34,000 cities around the world,
Airbnb offers everything from houseboats to castles to entire houses to just a
room, depending on your needs.

Every
property chooses their own prices, but because you are not dealing with large
hotel overheads, often the costs are far cheaper than booking through the
traditional channels. The website has a forum where guests can post reviews so
you can read about other people’s experiences.

Airbnb also secures
the payment for you so you don’t have to carry large amounts of cash and has a
cancellation policy in place to protect you from property owners who might
decide to change their minds.

Airbnb for Families

The idea of
staying in a stranger’s home works well if you are a penny-pinching backpacker,
but can it really work for families travelling with children? Absolutely, say
two suitcases&strollers mums.

For a start,
Airbnb provides a unique chance to live as the locals do, says Alissa Cuthbert
(mother of a then 8-month-old and three-year-old) who used the website throughout
Italy, including to book a stay at a goat farm near Lake Como. “We needed accommodation for 3
adults and 2 children as my mother-in-law was travelling with us so we could
all be together in a large space at a more affordable price. Plus we wanted to
experience more of the culture which often hotels don't allow you to do. Hotels
are pretty much the same all over the world and you could be at home still for
all you know,” she says. “The owners are always lovely as they enjoy meeting
people from other places and this means you get to experience more of the local
culture even if you are only there for a short time.”

Ilana Rosenzweig
has two kids aged 9 and 6 and used
Airbnb to book accommodation in Bali, Indonesia. She was also travelling with
elderly parents and wanted something comfortable that wouldn’t be too
expensive. “The accommodations we got were a lot more cost effective than
booking at a hotel. When traveling with kids, it is much easier to have a house
so that when they go to sleep you are not stuck sitting in a dark room.”

But there were
disadvantages to staying in a private property versus a hotel or resort, she
acknowledges. “You don't have staff to take care of helping you make plans. You
need to be more self-sufficient. But, the trade off is less expense for more
space. For us, having a house when travelling with three generations
meant my husband and I could go out to dinner after the kids and my parents were
asleep. We did not have the worry of leaving the children with a strange sitter
or my parents having to stay awake with them in a dark hotel room until we
returned.”

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[For more travel tips on
travelling with grandparents, see the suitcases&strollers
story here.]

There are also small glitches
you need to be aware of that apply to staying in any private home. For Ilana it
was flailing air conditioning and hot water that didn’t always work. For
Alissa, some of the properties were more difficult to find than she expected
because they weren’t signposted or the directions on the site were not clear.

But having full facilities
can be an advantage that makes those inconveniences worthwhile. “Having a
kitchen is great to be able to eat breakfast quickly and with less expense,”
says Ilana. “I find it frustrating when travelling if you have to spend an hour
or so on breakfast that the kids may or may not be very interested in. The
kitchen is very helpful with picky eaters too.”

[For more travel tips on introducing kids to
foreign foods, see the suitcases&strollers interview with celebrity chef Emmanuel Stroobant here.]

Checklist of Things To Ask

Since Airbnb
is not a hotel group and you will be dealing directly with individual
homeowners, make sure you plan in advance to ensure you know exactly what you
are getting before you arrive. Here is a checklist of questions to ask to
ensure a smooth holiday with kids.

·Will
keys be provided so you can enter and exit as you wish?

·What
are the check in and check out times? While Airbnb does have a standard policy,
it’s worthwhile double checking with the homeowner what their expectations are.

·If
you are travelling with toddlers, is the property child-proofed? If not, what
are the things you will need to look out for?

·Ask
about accessibility and ease of entrance and exit to the property, especially
if you will have strollers and a lot of luggage to move.

·Will
the fridge and kitchen be stocked with any food items? If yes, what are these
so you can plan around them.

·If
it seems like your accommodation may be in a remote location, ask for very
specific and clear directions of how to get there.

For other accommodation booking
websites specifically targeting families traveling with kids, see the suitcases&strollers story here.

Interesting, I found this article while doing a search about “Should children be allowed to stay for free” I host on airbnb and have had a couple of instances where the pople staying think kids should be free (we give a discount for kids under 5 yesrs old) Many places do not allow kids to stay so surely people with small children should understand they have to pay a little for their child - am keen to hear other peoples opinions and views on this.

Lotty
08 Mar 2016, 5:42am

this is great! we recently listed our family-friendly AirBnB in Melbourne, Australia bit.ly/kia_ora
Items provided so you don’t have to lug them across the world are:
Cot or Porta-cot
Single bed/s
Bedding
High chair
Plastic bowls and plates
Cutlery
Toys (Duplo and lots of other wonderful stuff)
Books
Pencils and crayons
Car booster seat
Baby bath
Kid’s DVDs such as ‘In the Night Garden’
and more! including a kid’s park right across the road